Friday, March 9, 2018

To the capital for the launch last night at the
Wellington Festival of three VUP books: All
This by Chance, a novel by Vincent O’Sullivan (see my 2011 report An Hour of Terror
with Vincent O’Sullivan); Feverish,
a memoir by Gigi Fenster; and The Facts,
a poetry collection by Therese Lloyd.This was held in the Spiegeltent. Last time I was
in it I was on-stage at the Tauranga writers’ festival: my view of these events
is that they are for appearing at, not attending. But for Vincent I will always
make an exception and even go to Wellington. The Spiegeltent is a splendid
venue, and this night it was packed: my spy on the door said there had been 190
acceptances, which is pretty good for a book launch.

At the back of the stage was a band’s gear all
set up – drums, amplifiers, keyboards, the works. Damien Wilkins was in the
crowd – would he and his band the Close Readers
perform, I wondered. Sadly, no. He was just there to introduce the authors.
Bah.

After Damien’s speech there were readings by
Fenster and Lloyd which were a) good and b) brief. Then along came Vincent.

Damien had talked about how the novel conveys“the wildness of experience, its
uncanniness”. Well, yes. Then: “We see how ingratiating so much contemporary
fiction is – it wants to be our friend. All
This by Chance is only interested in its own material.” I’m not quite sure
what he meant by that but probably also well, yes.

Then Vincent spoke. Mercifully, he did not read.
He thanked his publisher, Fergus Barrowman: “This is the 12th book we’ve done
together and it’s almost too late to stop.” He said nice things about his
editor – that would be me – and especially Steven Sedley who was his adviser on
the cultural background: many of the novel’s characters over several
generations are dealing with how to live in New Zealand after the Holocaust, and
Steven sure knows about that. (Older readers may remember his Horizon Bookshop
in Lower Hutt – one of the great independent booksellers.)

Afterwards I talked to Fiona Kidman about
editors; I met my favourite New Zealand composer Ross Harris; I hung around the
Unity Books desk and saw that sales of all three books looked to be brisk. And
then I went to Little Penang for dinner. Can recommend.

For what it’s worth, I think All This by Chance is a great novel. Maybe the best New Zealand
novel ever. So here is Led Zeppelin in 1970:

Friday, March 2, 2018

I was so disappointed to read Harriet Smith’s review of Stephen Hough’s wonderful new Debussy CD (January, page 64). She seems to favour fast, bright Debussy over a more romantic approach. We should never forget that Debussy composed on an upright piano covered with blankets. He didn’t like bright, virtuoso playing of his music. I heard Mr Hough on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune telling of a backstage conversation with a pianist in the 1950s. ‘My father said everyone plays L’isle joyeux too fast,’ said an elderly lady to the pianist. ‘Who was your father?’ asked the pianist. ‘Claude Debussy.’